Sometime in December, longtime Farm Collector contributor Jim Lacey of Dell Rapids, South Dakota, read a query in our letters section about a dairy centrifuge. “So,” he wrote in a note he enclosed with an article on centrifuges “since it was nice and cold here, I bundled up, walked out to the barns at a temperature of 20 degrees below zero and 30mph winds out of the northwest, then walked back to the shop to get an LP torch to heat the combination locks so as to get into two buildings” to take the photos he would enclose with the article.
For that, Jim wins the prize for going above and beyond. Had it been me in those conditions, well, it wouldn’t have been me in those conditions, because I would not have strayed more than 6 feet from the wood burner!
By the time I rediscovered Jim’s note in the flotsam that blankets my desk, April had arrived in Kansas. Anything can happen here in the spring, but winter’s cold is probably well behind us. Up next: show season!
I am eternally grateful that all I do is go to shows. If I had to get a display ready, I guarantee it would already be behind schedule. And with mowing and gardening looming large on the horizon, the schedule is only going to tighten in the months ahead.
So, to those of you who spend the off-season wrenching, sourcing parts, getting parts built and rebuilt, sandblasting and painting, many thanks! Sure, it’s your hobby, but that doesn’t mean it’s all fun and games. At the end of the day, everyone who’s ever attended a show has done so because people like you are committed to preserving the past, and you routinely go above and beyond to make it happen. We appreciate you!
Last fall, Clell Ballard (another longtime contributor) commissioned his brother Clark to write a story for Farm Collector. That piece (A Cold Milking Experience) appears in this issue. It is both a fun read and a reminder of how siblings’ voices often sound the same. If you didn’t pay attention to the byline of Clark’s article, you’d think you were reading Clell’s work.
Motivated by health issues, Clell – another member of the “above and beyond” club – has stepped away from writing. Near as I can tell, he started writing for Farm Collector in 2010. We’ll miss his inimitable presence in these pages and hope to see him again somewhere down the road.
Originally published as “For all you ‘above and beyonders'” in the June 2023 issue of Farm Collector magazine.
